


Play Fair

by wearemany



Series: Rookies [2]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: 2013-2014 NHL Season, First Time, Los Angeles Kings, M/M, Manchester Monarchs, Multi, Phone Sex, Post-Game(s), Threesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-21
Updated: 2013-11-21
Packaged: 2018-01-02 05:48:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1053229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearemany/pseuds/wearemany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whoever got a point gets to take their pants off first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Play Fair

**Author's Note:**

> Maybe I should’ve explained more [last time around](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1047370). (You should read that first, probably.) 
> 
> Tanner Pearson—along with Linden Vey and Tyler Toffoli—are the three top players for the LA Kings’ AHL affiliate, the Manchester Monarchs. After a bunch of injuries last week, including Jeff Carter breaking his foot again, they were all called up to the Kings. Pearson [got a goal his first game](http://dazzlingheroes.tumblr.com/post/67215500854), after which Mike Richards sent [this inexplicably “I got there first” tweet](http://twitter.com/MRichie_10/statuses/401224866600591360) about the kid. The earlier story took place months earlier; this one is set that night. I would’ve saved the title if I thought I’d write more. 
> 
> Also: fully half of those tags are pretty much lies. Sorry. Also sorry, rookies, I added your names to AO3.

Tanner catches Mike's elbow in the hotel hall, holding up his phone. "Seriously?" he asks, already resigned to the answer.

Mike shrugs. "It was a good goal," he says. Tanner flushes, red high on his cheeks, so easy it's almost—almost—not fun.

"They're gonna give me so much shit about this tweet," Tanner groans.

"You can take it," Mike says, and he doesn't mean it to sound dirty but it does. It's in the air, that post-win charge that makes him inhale a thousand calories, makes him think tequila shots are still a good idea and that he could go play anywhere in the league as long as Carts was there on the ice, too.

Tanner shakes his head like he's sorry they ever met, but he's laughing. He wasn't particularly shy or modest before they hooked up and whatever deference he might still show to Willie or even Dewey is long gone when it comes to Mike.

Which, fair enough, once you've had a guy's dick up your ass the only place you really owe him some respect is when you end up in bed or on your knees again. If you do that again. Which they haven't, which is probably for the best.

Tanner's phone buzzes, its screen in clear view as he waves it around: _**Ty:** where u at???????_

"Go have fun," Mike says. Tanner doesn't need to be reminded not to overdo it and anyway that's a lecture Mike should never be charged with handing out. He's got a condo back in Philly with skate gouges dug into the hardwood all up the hallway to prove it. He claps Tanner on the back. “Go on,” he says.

"Wanna come?" Tanner asks, and he absolutely means it to sound dirty. He leans in, lowers his voice a notch. "We have, uh, like a standing rule. Whoever got a point takes their pants off first."

"You all got a point," Mike says. And even if he didn't, the team got two, and that's all that really matters.

"We’d still let you watch," Tanner offers, sincere.

"Shouldn't you take a vote or something?"

"Richie," Tanner says, "believe me, I bring you back, no one's complaining."

Mike bites down on a smile. It’s no good to encourage him. Them.

Tanner raises one eyebrow, shameless, obvious.

“You tell them?” Mike asks. He never said not to, hadn’t thought much about it until Toffoli got called back up and side-eyed him a few times when he thought Mike wasn’t looking.

“No,” Tanner says, fast, and Mike decides to believe him. He doesn’t particularly give a shit but he’s wondered.

“I’ve never been much for watching,” he says. It’s true enough.

“You could—”

“Nah,” he says. “No thanks.”

“They’re gonna ask, now,” Tanner says. “Ask me about you, about that tweet.” He’s still trying to get somewhere, but it’s not a threat.

“They probably won’t believe you anyway,” Mike says. He grabs Tanner for half a hug, chests bumping and another slap on the shoulders before he walks away.   

“Heyyyyy, young buck,” he hears through a flurry of catcalls as he turns the corner toward his room.

His phone vibrates in his pocket.

“I _knew_ it,” Jeff says.

Mike unlocks his door. “Knew what?”

“You and Pearson. I could tell something—”

“No you couldn't.” He kicks off his shoes, slides out of his jacket.

“I could! He wasn't…” Jeff hums a little into the phone. “He wasn’t scared enough of you.”

Mike sighs. “I'm really not trying to scare them.”

“You’re terrible,” Jeff says. “When?”

“Like, late summer. I don’t know. Training camp.” He runs all the words together fast. He sounds guilty. He turns off the light by the closet and turns on the one by the bed.

“Where was I?” Jeff sounds like he’s doing math in his head, flipping back through a calendar and counting.

“I don't know.”

He genuinely doesn't, can only remember a persistent, frustrated crankiness from those weeks. Leaving the lake and getting back into the routine of LA and practice and living alone was harder than he’d expected this year, so much that even fucking a rookie barely broke through the haze.

“It's not like I planned it,” he says. “He started it. He's had a crush on me since Kitchener.”

Jeff says, “So you forced him into one of your weird staring contests until he took off his pants.”

Mike will allow that the point Jeff's trying to make is not really about who took off whose pants first.

“It happened,” he admits, and before Jeff asks, which he will, adds, “and it wasn’t even half bad.”

“High praise from you,” Jeff says.

It was better than that, if he’s being honest. Not great—the kid knew what he was doing, but he was still green, is still going to get better—but it was not the shit show it could’ve been.  

Mike shoves the pillows around, sits back against the headboard and undoes his cuffs. “He just invited me back, actually.”

“I bet he did,” Jeff says, a lazy, laughing drawl. “You check to see if it still says ‘Richards was here’ across his ass?”

“To _watch_ ,” Mike says. He holds his phone against his chin as he takes off his button-down, pulls out his belt. “Him and Vey and Toffoli.”

“No shit.”

“No shit,” Mike says.

“So what’re you doing talking to me?”

They haven’t done this in a while, been on different ends of a country with a story to tell, even a shitty one. Mike called him some over the summer, nights when Lindsey was in Winnipeg and Jeff and Megan were out drinking in Sea Isle, Jeff slipping outside to talk. But it wasn’t like this, wasn’t like when Jeff was in Ohio. It was just Mike, lonely and rambling about Seinfeld reruns and what fish had gotten away. Jeff listening.

“Three on one,” he says, “didn’t seem fair.”

Jeff cackles. “Fair to who?” And before Mike can come back at that, Jeff says, “Fair to me?”

Mike sucks in a quick breath. They haven’t done this in even longer. He’s not even sure they’re going to now, but he still says, “Why? Three on two sound better?”

“Those three?” Jeff’s skeptical, and not just as a tease.

“Sounds like a lot of work, right?” Mike says, and Jeff says, “Yeah, yeah it does.”

They’re quiet for a little while, and he can feel the moment slide away, gently. He pushes farther down the bed, wishes he had someone there to take his pants off, even if just to get him under the covers and to sleep.

“How’s the foot?” he asks.

“I hate it,” Jeff says, a little raw. He hates it more every time, Mike knows, worries more every time he won’t bounce back.

They’re middle-aged for hockey but some days they’re feeling older than others. Some nights, too, apparently, if he’s lying in his hotel room alone listening to Jeff talk about physical therapy instead of calling the plays as three rookies get naked.

“You probably ruined him, you know,” Jeff says out of nowhere.

“He seems fine.”

“You might as well tattoo it on him,” Jeff continues, undeterred. “Only fair to everybody who comes after to know what they’re gonna have to live up to.”

Mike kicks at his pants until he wins and they fall to the floor next to the bed. That’s as close to undressed as he’s getting. He turns off the light, closes his eyes.

Jeff’s still listening.

“Wish you were here,” Mike says.  

“You ruined me good, Richie,” Jeff says, “and you know it.”

**Author's Note:**

> That story about Richie leaving blade marks down the hall of his condo is totally real, or as real as comments in a shitty Philly sports gossip blog can be.
> 
> [More rambling about Richie at my Tumblr.](http://dazzlingheroes.tumblr.com)


End file.
